V Scholar Archives - Page 15 of 60

Marcia Tan, PhD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND

Tobacco use, specifically cigarette smoking, is a primary reason that adults develop and die from lung cancer. Adults with low income smoke cigarettes at higher rates than the general population, but they are less likely to go to the doctor and receive help with quitting. It is important to design programs that reach this population outside of a hospital or clinic setting.

Community health workers (CHWs) are frontline public health workers who work with these communities to help improve their health and connect them to medical services. CHWs are often the first, and sometimes the only, healthcare provider for these adults. Training CHWs on conducting brief interventions for tobacco cessation, or quitting smoking, is important. However, current trainings for tobacco cessation are not always accessible to CHWs because of cost and time-constraints, and because the trainings are not relevant to CHWs’ patients’ experiences. This study will address these issues by adapting a tobacco cessation training specifically for CHWs. We will use information that CHWs have provided about their practices caring for their patients to make the training relevant to their patients’ experiences. We will then give the training to CHWs and test whether the training increased CHWs’ knowledge about tobacco cessation, and whether the training is appropriate for CHWs and their patients. Having more CHWs trained in tobacco cessation will increase the number of adults who receive help to quit smoking, which will help to reduce tobacco use and, ultimately cancer, among adults with low income.

Melody Smith, MD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND WITH SUPPORT FROM BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB

For a patient with a blood cancer that has not responded to standard treatment, an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (allo-HCT; also referred to as bone marrow transplant) provides the potential for a cure. However, there is still the possibility that the patient’s disease may relapse. Another potential risk of allo-HCT may result when the immune cells from the bone marrow see the recipient as foreign, leading to a complication called graft versus host disease (GVHD). In this approach, I will investigate the use of an allo-HCT followed by donor immune cells targeted to kill the tumor, CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. Additionally, to improve the safety of the donor T cells I will utilize genetic engineering with CRISPR/Cas9 to remove the T cell receptor. Hence, I will also evaluate the functional and mechanistic impact of this genome engineering on the immunometabolism of the T cells.

Sorbarikor Piawah, MD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND WITH SUPPORT FROM BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB

For the past 20 years, the number of people under the age of 50 who are diagnosed with colon and rectal cancer has been rising very quickly, especially among Latinos living in the US and in Mexico. In fact, it is predicted that in the next 10 years, 1 in 10 colon cancer cases, and 1 in 4 rectal cancer cases will be in people younger than the age of 50. Currently, very little is known about the reasons behind this. We think that the food we eat, and our behaviors may play a role in getting colon and rectal cancer. We also think that the type of bacteria in our gut may predispose certain people to getting cancer at a younger age.

In order to explore this, we plan to invite 90 people in California and Mexico City, who identify as Latino, and who were younger that 50 when they were diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer to participate in our study. We will ask them to collect one stool sample at home, and will study the bacteria in that sample as well their tumors. We will also collect detailed information about the foods they eat, and their background using surveys. Overall, we hope to gather very important information that could help us understand why colon and rectal cancer is on the rise among younger people. This information could also help us identify new ways of preventing colon and rectal cancer in the future.

Jasmine McDonald, PhD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND

Understanding young women’s breast cancer is a public health priority. In the United States, the rate of metastatic breast cancer is rising faster in women aged 25-39 compared to older women. Pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer for 10 years after birth. Being diagnosed with breast cancer during this period is called postpartum breast cancer (PPBC). PPBC tumors are often more life threatening. Also, while breastfeeding reduces breast cancer risk, we do not know how breastfeeding impacts PPBC. Identifying unique tissue features within the PPBC tumor could lead to better outcomes. We will use the New York Breast Cancer Family Registry to analyze tumor tissue from 150 women. 50 samples from women diagnosed with breast cancer less than 5 years from childbirth (PPBC cases). 50 samples from women diagnosed more than 10 years from childbirth. 50 samples from women diagnosed who have never given birth. We will stain the tumor tissue with four biological markers. These markers have been associated with the spread of breast cancer and death from breast cancer. Staining, or adding coloring, to the tumor tissue will help identify unique features across the breast cancer cases.

Aim 1: Identify unique features within the tumor samples using the four markers in 150 cases.

Aim 2: Examine if the unique features predict breast cancer clinical features in 150 cases.

We know little about the PPBC tumor tissue. Identifying unique tissue features that map to the PPBC tumor can improve survival outcomes for young adult patients.

Catherine Marshall, MD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND WITH SUPPORT FROM BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB

Heart disease and low blood counts are common complications for men with prostate cancer.   There are some reasons why this might happen that are already known – either because of the cancer itself or because of some of the treatments for cancer.  Recently, scientists have found that white blood cell clones (cells that all come from one cell; called CHIP) have changes in their DNA that might put people at higher risk for heart disease, complications with blood counts, and death.  CHIP, like prostate cancer, is associated with age, and may be contributing to heart disease and blood count problems we see in men with prostate cancer.  This study will look to see if men who have CHIP with prostate cancer have worse outcomes and if new treatments for prostate cancer contribute to CHIP. 

Verline Justilien, PhD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND WITH SUPPORT FROM BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for the majority of lung cancer diagnoses and has a very low survival rate. There is a sub-population of cells within NSCLC tumors called cancer stem cells (CSCs) that are highly aggressive. These CSCs are capable of fueling the growth and metastasis of tumors and have been shown to be resistant to current drug treatments for NSCLC. Therefore, CSCs must be eliminated to effectively treat and gain lasting remission in patients with NSCLC. CSCs can communicate with other cells in a tumor by transferring information packaged within small particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs). We hypothesize that the molecules packaged within EVs from CSCs can make non-CSCs within NSCLC tumors more aggressive by increasing their ability to grow and metastasize. We propose to identify the molecules packaged within NSCLC CSC EVs. We also aim to block the function of the molecules within the CSC EVs to prevent the growth of NSCLC cancer cells. Completion of these studies will provide new information about how CSCs function to make NSCLC deadly. In addition, these studies will help in the design of new strategies to eliminate NSCLC CSCs which may provide effective, long-term treatment for NSCLC patients.

Avery Posey, Jr., PhD

FUNDED BY THE STUART SCOTT MEMORIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND WITH SUPPORT FROM BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB

Immune cell-based therapies represent the latest pillar of cancer therapy. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells have demonstrated significant anti-tumor activity against B cell leukemia and lymphoma and similar efficacies against multiple myeloma. CAR-NK cells are a newer addition to the cellular immunotherapy field but have already shown impressive results in the treatment of lymphoma. In this project, we will evaluate the activity of CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies targeting BCMA and TnMUC1 as single agents and combination strategies for the treatment of multiple myeloma. In addition, we will develop methods to enhance the efficacy and persistence of NK-cell based therapies through strategies to overcome immunosuppression. Successful completion of this project would generate novel and enhanced therapeutic strategies to treat multiple myeloma with immune cell-based therapies.

Tuoqi Wu, PhD

Funded by the Constellation Gold Network Distributors in honor of the Dick Vitale Fund

Scientists have given immune cells a detector for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They called these cells CAR T cells. In some patients, these CAR T cells disappear before they can clear the tumor. In others, these cells become too exhausted to work. We have recently identified the molecular code that prevents T cells from dying off or becoming exhausted. With the funding support, we will use this molecular code to make CAR T cells stay in cancer patients longer and clear B-cell ALL more effectively. We hope to use this strategy to cure a much larger population of pediatric cancer patients with B-cell ALL.

Andrea Viale, MD

Funded by the Constellation Gold Network Distributors

Patients with pancreatic cancer are usually diagnosed with advanced disease and suffer from a very poor prognosis with limited treatment options. This is due to the lack of early detection tests and the largely asymptomatic onset of the disease. In the past decade, drugs that pit the body’s immune response against cancerous cells—also known as immunotherapeutics—have been used to treat a variety of cancers but seem to only benefit a limited number of patients. In particular, immunotherapeutics seem generally ineffective against pancreatic cancer, although it is unknown if there is a subset of pancreatic cancer patients who may benefit from this therapeutic approach. To understand why, we will use a new platform developed in our laboratory to study how different populations of cancerous and immune cells within the tumor interact with each other as well as with the other cells in the tumor’s surroundings (i.e. tumor microenvironment). Additionally, the platform will track how these interactions change when the tumor is exposed to disturbances such as immunotherapeutics. Our study will allow us to understand how individual cell populations contribute to the pancreatic tumor’s response—or lack thereof—to immunotherapeutics as well as its ability to evade the immune response. Ultimately, our findings can be used to develop tests that can predict whether a patient with pancreatic cancer will benefit from a certain immunotherapeutic approach.

Ramon Sun, PhD

Funded by Mark and Cindy Pentecost in memory of Will DeGregorio

Ewing sarcoma relies on decades-old chemotherapy options, where aggressive treatments are met with poor disease outcomes. Ewing sarcoma is a devastating disease that affects mostly young adults age 10-16, but children under the age 10 can also develop this deadly illness. Due to the disease’s classification as a rare disease (less than 10,000 cases/year), it has not received the attention of the research community like other more common cancers; therefore, it is in desperate need of intense research and development of new therapeutic options. One of the key observations of Ewing sarcoma made back in the 1930’s is the accumulation of large amount of glycogen. Glycogen is a sugar molecule that our body uses to store energy; only specific organs such as the liver and muscle are capable of producing glycogen. The ability of Ewing sarcoma tumors to store large amount of glycogen has been forgotten until now. This proposal aims to understand the reason behind large glycogen accumulation in Ewing sarcoma and exploit the glycogen deposits as a possible drug target for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma. Dr. Sun has established ongoing collaborations with pediatric physicians to study the basis of glycogen targeting agents for the treatment of Ewing’s sarcoma, and to define early diagnostic biomarkers and evaluation of response to therapy. The long-term goal is to establish treatment options using one or multiple modalities as tailored therapies against Ewing’s sarcoma’s metabolic vulnerability.